Memorial is a beautiful book by author Bryan Washington.
A notable New York Times book of the year.
Funny and poignant story about family in all its strange forms, hard-won joy and vulnerability, becoming who you have to be, and the limits of love.

Benson and Mike are two young men living together in Houston. Mike is a Japanese-American chef at a Mexican restaurant and Benson is a Black daycare teacher, and they’ve been together for a few years – good years – but now they’re not sure why they are still a couple. There was sex for sure, and the meals Mike cooked for Benson, and they fell in love. When Mike discovered his estranged father was dying in Osaka while his hot-tempered Japanese mother, Mitsuko, was visiting Texas, Mike was picked up and flown around the world to say goodbye.

In Japan, he undergoes an extraordinary transformation, discovering the truth about his family and past. Returning home, Mitsuko and Benson are stuck living together as unusual roommates, an absurd family situation that ends up meaning more to each one than they could have anticipated. . Without Mike’s immediate pull, Benson began to reach out, realizing he might know what he wanted out of life and be qualified to get it. Both men will change in ways that make them stronger together, or break everything they’ve ever known.

Somewhere in this book is the potential for a good story but the flawed writing, flawed editing, and undertones of racism, buried that potential. The end result is a miserably depressing tale of a failed relationship with numerous attempts that completely miss any mark of humor.

The story is a jumble of stream-of-consciousness on steroids – flipping back and forth in time, memories and ideas like a metronome. The story would have been more powerful had the past memories been collected into chapters and strategically placed between current events instead of being sprinkled like salt over the entire storyline. The structure of the book also begs for further editing. Benson’s tale is told in dozens of chapters – some with as few as 6 words, while Mike’s tale is a non-stop belching of a single chapter over 130 pages long. If this was the author’s attempt to distinguish the voices of the two main characters, he failed.

Further, the book smacks of a lazy high-schooler who took drastic steps to stretch out the text merely to meet the requisite page length. First, the vast majority of sentences (short ones at that) are all separate paragraphs. It’s an annoying read. Paragraphs should collect thoughts that instead are ripped apart in this book for no reason. Second, the book is littered with superfluous nonsense such as: There’s a fly. There’s a guy. There’s a cop. There’s a nose-picker. There’s a dog. There’s a mosquito. There’s a pigeon. There’s a raccoon. There’s somebody. There’s something. There’s anybody. There’s nothing. And all of these are separate paragraphs, of course. If I wanted to waste my time absorbing such banality of life, I would just stare out my window. The lazy writing also continues with the complete lack of any quotation marks, which makes for an even more annoying read.

Finally, as a Black author who has earned at least some voice in the literary world, it is extremely disappointing that he perpetuates racism in this novel – especially given so many recent events. Anytime a Black ancillary character is described, the author uses “Black lady,” “Black people,” “Black couple,” etc. But when a white ancillary character is described, the author nearly always (and from both main characters’ voices) uses “whitechick,” “whitelady,” “whitegirl,” “whiteboy,” etc. These are all derogatory and racist non-words. In fact, the author feels compelled to almost always point out the race of any ancillary characters he describes in the book – from fellow diners and patrons, to visitors at a park, to wait staff, etc. Readers don’t care, or need to know, what race these fleeting ancillary characters are. But when they are Black, they are always described with respect. When they are white, they are defamed. When the world is trying so hard to become colorblind, it is irresponsible for this author to perpetuate these racist digs which add nothing to the storyline.

 Memorial

• A Novel
• By: Bryan Washington

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